Kristen Stewart on Vampire Bella: “It Felt So Good to Break Her In, to See How Fast the Car Goes”

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart at 2012 Comic-Con., By Kevin Winter/Getty Images.

“Oh my gosh, he’s wearing a shirt!” yelped one fan as Taylor Lautner took the stage today at Comic-Con for the Twilight: Breaking Dawn—Part 2 presentation, perhaps the most anticipated panel at the fan festival this year. Lautner and his shirt were followed by Robert Pattinson, a surprisingly emotional Kristen Stewart, new cast member Mackenzie Foy (who plays Bella and Edward’s daughter, Renesmee), andTwilightauthor Stephenie Meyer.

For the film franchise’s final preview at the San Diego Convention Center—a bittersweet experience for everyone, including Kellan Lutz—fans were treated to a surprise screening of the first seven minutes of Breaking Dawn—Part 2. (Cue the lights, wild screams, and at least one audience member deadpanning, “More like seven minutes in heaven.”) Without giving too much away, the series’ last installment opens with Bella, now a vampire, feeling out her new powers and embarking on her first-ever hunt—a high-speed chase that spans scenic waterfalls and forestscapes. The highlight of the mini-screening, however—aside from a Luke Skywalker in the audience finding his seat in the dark, 6,500-person auditorium with the help of his light saber—was Bella tackling a mountain lion in midair. Later, Lautner’s Jacob Black appeared for his characteristically stiff deliveries. (Alas, he was fully clothed in the scene, too.) The audience was also shown an exclusive clip in which Carlisle and Esme Cullen (Peter Facinelli and Elizabeth Reaser) comically attempt to teach coldblooded Bella how to appear like a human. (“Blink at least three times per minute” and “don’t sit up so straight. Humans don’t do that.”)

When the lights went up, Kristen Stewart told the crowd how excited she was to play a vampire, having envied her fanged co-stars for four movies now. “It felt so good to break her in, to see how fast the car goes. Twilight vampires are very unique—they’re not like all vampires. But I think everything about her is amplified. Everyone’s powers are informed by how they were as a human. . . . You want something for so long, and then they give it to you. They made me wait for it. It’s like waiting for Christmas.”

Robert Pattinson seemed less enthused about one aspect of his own Breaking Dawn—Part 2 character development, which entailed a prosthetic hairpiece. “It was my last two weeks filming Twilight, and they put an orange wig on my head. It was like Frankenstein’s monster.”

Later, a fan asked Stewart what one moment on set she would live in forever, if she could. The actress and Vanity Fair’s July cover star appeared genuinely verklempt when she remembered a pivotal scene in the series: “I don’t want to seem cheesy and lame. I’m being honest now. But my wedding was beautiful. When you’re an actor, you just want to forget everything [so that you can] be your character. For me, I was mindless that day. It was so cool. I was like thank you, [director] Bill Condon. . . . This is really sad, dude!”